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Maybe this should be linked from the front page?
Maybe. Or maybe it could be mentioned on the meetups page. I'm not the one to make that call.
I feel like this is the first one I'm aware of that is directly user-editable, which increases the chance of staying up to date, especially if each point is marked with when it was last updated.
EDIT: Oh, it's not possible to remove or edit markers, only to add them, unless you save the magic URL from when the marker was created, or possibly are some sort of admin or maybe pay money. :-(
For my own reference, the magic URL to delete or edit my marker is: https://www.zeemaps.com/edit/WCXZQ_0pN-M2vwfx4VBR-g (I see no harm in making this public, since anybody can create an unauthenticated marker with my name on it in any case.)
Just contact me if you lose your URL. I'll delete the marker and you can make a new one.
I like these things, and I've added myself, but... there've been similar ones in the past, they don't stay up to date. I feel like without some way for users to know, six months from now, that the information they're looking at is still accurate, any given iteration is never going to be very useful for long.
An idea that's floating around in my head, I think I've mentioned it before, is that a service like this could require everyone to occasionally confirm that they're still in the same place. Send out an email once a month, they can click a link or reply to remain on the map, or ignore it to be removed.
I would expect that people move so rarely that the information would remain mostly up to date for years or even decades. Am I wrong?
I can also add a comment somewhere telling people to notify me if they tried to reach someone and failed. In that case I would try to contact the person to see what's up and, failing that, remove the marker myself.
In response to
Open thread, Feb. 23 - Mar. 1, 2015
A few days back I made a ZeeMap for LessWrong and promised to post it in an Open Thread, so here it is: https://www.zeemaps.com/map?group=1323143
It's basically a way of finding people that share a particular interest living nearby. There is no need to register - just add your marker and keep an eye out for someone living near you.
In response to
Sidekick Matchmaking
I'm going to post about this on an open thread later, but meanwhile I think it might be useful here.
I made a ZeeMap for LessWrong just yesterday: https://www.zeemaps.com/map?group=1323143
A ZeeMap is a good way of finding people that share an interest living nearby. You add your location and contact information, and hope someone living near you sees it.
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Even if people don't move much, they might leave the community, or remain in the community but stop checking LW so that they look like they've left.
But it's not just about whether or not it does stay accurate, it's also about whether people perceive it to be accurate. If someone expects it to be out of date, they might not even bother trying. I (and I think a bunch of other people) find it somewhat aversive to contact a complete stranger with a request, even if that person has said it's totally okay to contact them with those requests, and it gets worse if they said it six months ago and might have retracted the offer.
(Related, if I did contact someone and got no reply, I would then find it somewhat aversive to contact you and let you know about it. I might also forget to do that, it's difficult to trigger off of not getting a reply to an email. And then I'd have to wonder if you're still active...)
Incidentally, I looked for a previous iteration so we could see empirically whether or not it's still accurate, but I can't find it. LW uses the word "map" a lot. I did find a couchsurfing group that no longer seems to exist.
Regardless of how true what you're saying is, it all sounds like very weak reasons not to try. Some people find aversive to contact an stranger? Whatever, some don't. I'm sure there'll be plenty of people who won't hesitate in seizing an opportunity to meet a fellow LWer, especially if they live in less developed places where meeting interesting people is really hard.
A monthly mail confirmation sounds like more trouble than it's worth, and people might be put off by the spammy nature of it. I think fixing the map as people report problems is a better approach.
Honestly, your complaints sound like those of someone who already can meet interesting people and has little need for the map in the first place. I'm sure those who really need it won't have any problems with it. The map doesn't have to be perfect to be useful.
I'm interested in seeing how previous attempts went however. If you recall any others don't hesitate to tell me.